NJORD AND SKADI: A MYTH EXPLORED
Table of Contents
Introduction: Why this myth? and, What's with all the questions?
The Story
Three or Nine? How long in Thrymheim?
The Main Characters
Asgard, Jötunheim, Midgard: Where Are They?
Are there any stories similar to this myth?
Theories About This Myth
What is a Giant? Or, Risar and Thursar and Trolls, oh my!
Why do the Gods and Giants Interact at all?
Who are the Vanir?
Who is Njord's sister?
What about Gerdr and Freyr?
What is it that Giantesses Want?
Why Could Skadi Claim Atonement and Compensation?
Sami Parallels
Why is Njord so passive?
What is a Hostage?
Why did Skadi have to choose by their feet?
Why is Loki so vulgar?
Why does Loki borrow a shape if he's a shape-shifter?
Why Does Loki Keep Getting Stuck?
Conclusion
Bibliography
Endnotes
NJORD AND SKADI
A MYTH EXPLORED
SHEENA McGRATH
Published by Avalonia
www.avaloniabooks.co.uk
Published by Avalonia
BM Avalonia, London, WC1N 3XX, England, UK
www.avaloniabooks.co.uk
Njord and Skadi: A Myth Explored
© Sheena McGrath 2015
All rights reserved.
First Published by Avalonia, October 2016
This Kindle edition January 2017
Typesetting and design by Satori
Cover Art by Laura Daligan ©2016. www.lauradaligan-art.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This book is sold subject to the condition that no part of it may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, or used in another book, without written permission from the author.
DEDICATION
To Nash, Dana, and Mark,
who all encouraged me in their separate ways.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the librarian at the College of the North Atlantic for all his help, Simon Ross for sending me several papers only available in England, and Terry Gunnell, Triin Laidoner, and John McKinnell for their generous assistance.
About the author
Sheena McGrath lives in northern Canada. She has a degree in medieval studies, and is the author of four other books: The Sun Goddess, Asyniur, Sun, Moon and Stars, and Brigantia. To catch up with what she's doing now, check out her blog, We Are Star Stuff.
Other books by this author:
The Sun Goddess: Myth, Legend, and History (Cassell: 1997)
Asyniur: Women’s Mysteries of the North (Capall Bann: 1997)
Sun, Moon and Stars (Capall Bann: 2006)
Abbreviations
FltFlateyjarbok
GylfGylfaginning
GrmGrimnismal
HlyHaleygjatal
HarbHarbardsljod
HstHaustlöng
HkrHeimskringla
HyndHyndluljod
LksLokasenna
SkldSkáldskaparmál
SkrSkirnirsmal
ThrymThrymskvida
VafVafthrudnismal
VspVoluspa
YsYnglinga saga
YtYnglingatal
Chapter 1
Introduction: Why this myth? and, What's with all the questions?
Roughly 20 years ago I wrote a book called Asyniur, which covered the Norse goddesses and also looked at women and women's roles in medieval Scandinavia. After I'd finished, the Skadi myth stuck with me, and at one time I even attempted a novel based on what I saw as its themes. The novel never really got off the ground, but my interest in the myth remained.
Usually, I write about something because there isn't much on that topic, and I want to learn more about it. In other words, I write the book I wanted to read. (I suspect this happens to a lot of nonfiction writers.) A little bit of research showed that there was a good deal being written about the Vanir gods and the giants in academic circles, and also among popular writers, but not an in-depth study of my particular myth. (Prolonged Echoes by Margaret Clunies-Ross came closest, as part of her book is a close analysis of the Skadi myth and the myth of another giantess - Vanir marriage, that of Gerdr and Freyr.)
Within and without the field of Norse mythology, it seemed like the giants were finally getting the attention they deserved. Lotte Motz had been a pioneer in that area, establishing that the giants did receive worship and were more important than most had realized. Others, from John Lindow and John McKinnell to Marlene Ciklamini and Else Mundt, Armann Jakobsson and Preben Meulengracht Sorensen, also contributed to understanding the giant-god dynamic.
From a completely different direction, the book Monster Theory also helped to focus interest on the "other" of the myths, the aberrant, chaotic giants. And, outside academia, there were cults of Loki and of the Rokkur (giants and other such beings) springing up on the internet. Once again it seemed that popular culture was doing with gusto what academia does rather more respectably.
The interest for me in the myth of Njord and Skadi came from several features:
it had no obvious moral or meaning
it has a downer ending (the Divine Divorce, anyone?)
it has a lot to say about the relations between gods and giants
it is both comic and deadly serious
it shows Skadi and Loki at a crossroads in their relationship with the gods
it brings out the power relations in the Norse mythic universe
it gives the giants a much bigger role in the story than usual
The myth as a whole has both the usual back-and-forth between the gods and giants as Thiazi kidnaps Idunn and pays with his life in the first half, and then a much different second half when Thiazi's daughter brings in legal norms in place of mythic necessity, demanding compensation for her father's murder - and getting it. We see a giant acting more civilized than the Aesir, and getting what she wants - sort of. Both parties try to step outside the endless cycle of theft and murder that mark relations between the two groups. This effort is ultimately doomed, but even when Njord and Skadi separate, she remains a goddess (Snorri tells us) and is invited to the Aesir's feasts. It needed Loki's efforts to provoke the final breach between gods and giants.
The structure of this book is somewhat unusual. If you have looked at the table of contents, you will have noticed that most of the chapter headings are in the form of questions. I wanted to write this book in that form, to take the reader along the paths I followed as I tried to figure out what this myth might be about, and why it interested me so much.
I call this the Perceval method, after the young knight in Arthurian legend who, confronted with the bleeding lance and other mystical items at the Fisher King's castle, fails to ask the saving question: what is the meaning of these things? When he wakes the next morning, the castle and everyone in it has vanished, and he must go searching for them to atone for his mistake. The moral, as far as I am concerned, is don't be afraid to ask questions. You may not save anyone, but you will learn something.
In the end, this method led me to write far more than is actually in here - E. M. Forester may have said "only connect", but in the end, with over 100,000 words of manuscript, the looser connections had to go. Some modern Heathens see the magpie as Skadi's bird; this may explain why I found it so hard to resist every s
hiny bauble of neat facts that I found. Peter Orton said that the Poetic Edda is so interconnected it is like a commentary on itself[2], and if you add in the Prose Edda, which essentially explains and expands on the myths, then it can feel difficult to stop making connections.
(Should you be interested in some of the pieces that were too out-there to fit in this book, they will be appearing, after some surgery, on my blog, We Are Star Stuff.)
At any rate, I hope you enjoy the book, and its somewhat unusual format. It's been a labour of love for me; I hope you like it too.
Chapter 2
The Story
The myth of Thiazi and Skadi is a story in two acts. The first part involves Thiazi and the kidnapping of the goddess Idunn, while the second is about Skadi's revenge after the gods rescue Idunn and kill Thiazi.
The first half we know mainly from the poem Haustlöng. (See the chapter entitled Thjodof of Hvin for more on the poem itself.) Odin, Hoenir and Loki were out wandering and they decided to stop and make dinner. They tried to cook an ox, but for whatever reason it stayed raw. Then they noticed an eagle, which was watching them from a tree. It made a bargain with them: in return for a share, it would cook their food. (What the gods did not know was that the eagle was the giant Thiazi in his bird-shape, and he was preventing the food from cooking.) The hungry gods agreed, but regretted the deal when the eagle took three of the four quarters.
Loki, who had served up the meat, was angry, and struck at the eagle as it flew away. Unfortunately, his stick stuck to the eagle, and Loki stuck to the stick. The eagle, indifferent or perhaps malicious, flew on, with Loki bumping along the ground. He, "crazy with pain", according to the poem, begged Thiazi to stop, and the giant seized the opportunity to make a deal. He demanded that Loki brings him the goddess Idunn, who held the apples of immortality, in return for his freedom. Loki agreed.
Thiazi brought Idunn to Jotunheim, and the giants now enjoyed the benefit of the apples, while the gods began to age. They bound Loki, and ordered him to get Idunn back. Loki used a "hawk's flight-skin" to bring him to Jotunheim. Once there, he turned Idunn into a nut and brought her back clutched in his claws, with Thiazi in close pursuit.
The rest of the Aesir were waiting for them, and had prepared a bonfire on the walls of Asgard. They lit it just as Loki flew past, so that Thiazi would fly right into the flames. He did; and died.
It seemed that was the end of the matter, since Thiazi had no sons, only a daughter. The Aesir had reckoned without Skadi's formidable nature; she took up armour and weapons and travelled the long distance to Asgard.
She must have presented a threat to the Aesir, for they offered her compensation: she could choose a husband from amongst the gods, but she could only choose him by looking at his feet. Skadi chose one pair of feet, notably attractive, saying, "I choose that one; few things on Baldr will be ugly."[3] But the feet were those of the Vanir god Njord.
She then imposed another condition: they must make her laugh, which she was sure they could not do. Loki, however, came out with his testicles tied to a nanny-goat's beard, and the two of them had a tug-of-war, with Loki yelping and the goat bleating, until the rope broke and he fell into Skadi's lap. She laughed, and the settlement was complete. As a bonus, Odin threw Thiazi's eyes up into the sky, where they became stars. Some say these stars are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. (It should be noted that Thor takes the credit for Thiazi's eyes in Harbardsljod.)
Then she and Njord were married, and worked out a deal between them. They would spend nine nights at Thrymheim (Noisy-Home), Skadi's realm in the mountains of Jotunheim, and then nine at Noatun (Ship-Harbour), by the seaside. Each hated the other's abode, and they went their separate ways. Skadi, however, seems to have retained her station as a goddess.
How the Two Halves Relate
There are many similarities between the two halves of this story, Thiazi's half and Skadi's half. Although some authors go so far as to speculate that Snorri may have invented the story of Skadi to account for existing verses (which he quotes) about her unhappy marriage, I can't help but think that if he did, he made a good job of it. Since we have no other source for the Skadi story except the verses that the couple speak about how unhappy they are, it's hard to know how much Snorri invented, or whether it was a cut and paste job.
The many parallels between Thiazi's story and his daughter's, however old either one is, are very satisfying, and make for a unified whole which seems fitting for a story which is about the adventures of a giant family who wish to take advantage of the powers of the gods. Some of these parallel motifs are:
a giant wants a god/dess for a partner
both father and daughter aim (too) high
travel between Jotunheim and Asgard
unsuccessful pairing
Loki involved in both stories
in each a passive character whose fate is determined by others
quest to take that which the Aesir hold precious (revenge?)
Both halves can be said to be about how giants try to gain access to the precious things of the gods (7). Thiazi succeeds briefly, but it costs him his life, and Skadi has conditional success: no husband, no Baldr, but she attains goddess status. (See Does Skadi Win? for more on this.)
Numbers 1 and 2 go together. Thiazi wants Idunn, and either her apples or the rejuvenating power implied in her name. Skadi wants Baldr, the next generation of the Aesir, son of the senior god, and one of the few we know will survive Ragnarok (although she may not know that). Both are playing for very high stakes. If nothing else, considering how the gods normally treat interloping giants, including her own father, Skadi was running a risk going to Asgard at all. It takes a lot of courage to then try for Odin's only heir as a husband.
Travel between Jotunheim and Asgard (3) is always depicted as difficult, and the giants' home as far away from that of the gods. Loki seems to do it all the time, but mainly Jotunheim is seen as remote wilderness, much the way that Alaska is for most of us. In this story, however, both gods and giants whiz back and forth. In the first half it is Loki who does all the travelling, out to Jotunheim with Idunn, and then back again, in addition to his journey with Odin and Hoenir, and presumably home from wherever Thiazi dragged him.
In the second half, Skadi travels to Asgard, then she and Njord visit her home and then his in Vanaheim, and then she leaves him and returns home. (This last bit may be metaphorical, simply meaning that she went back to her old status.) So there's quite a lot of toing-and-froing in this story. Many of the Norse myths are about someone's journey but this one is a travel agent's dream.
As for Number 4, it seems pretty obvious to say that the Thiazi-Idunn pairing was not a success. When a woman's friends and family burn you to death, it hasn't worked out. The results were less severe for Skadi; she gets to keep her status as a goddess, although it seems that she and Njord became the proverbial example of a couple who couldn't stand each other's company.
As noted above, Loki is instrumental to both halves of the story (5). He is the one who strikes Thiazi, who helps him kidnap Idunn, and who brings her back. In part two, he is the one who saves the situation after Skadi is disappointed in her new husband, by making her laugh. In fact, he and Thiazi are the liveliest characters in the story, making mischief and magic, and then scheming together, before it all turns dark.
Idunn and Njord are the passive objects (6) that suffer the attentions or lack thereof of others. Idunn gets kidnapped, and Njord is forced into a marriage that almost immediately turns sour, a humiliating experience for anyone. (See Idunn and Why is Njord So Passive for more.)
With regard to number 7, it is interesting that while the Aesir usually steal objects from the giants, the giants usually try to kidnap or marry people they consider to have certain characteristics. (Although you could argue that if you want the apples, you need Idunn.) Skadi doesn't want the beauty and radiance of a god; she wants Baldr. (The fact that he's Odin's sole heir probably doesn't hurt, either.) The oth
er instances of giants trying to take things from the gods always involve either Freya or Freya and Sif, in other words fertility and affinity. It is unclear whether the giants view them as simply the embodiment of a particular quality, or if they just have a different world-view. (Also, the Aesir already have Idunn, Baldr, Freya and Sif; presumably the giants lack their qualities.)
Þjóðólfr of Hvinir: Haustlöng
The poem Haustlöng no longer exists except as a quotation. What we have is what Snorri gives us in the Prose Edda, but whether we’re seeing it in the form that Þjóðólfr of Hvinir composed it is open to question. We know very little about the poet, except that he was probably from southern Norway, home of the river Hvinga.
Other than that, we know that he was at the court of Haraldr hárfagri ('Fine-Hair') who was the first king of a united Norway, reigning from about 872 CE.[4] Þjóðólfr was one of his court poets, along with Þórbjörn hornklofi ('horn-blast'). Both of them composed poetry that used many mythological references. Þjóðólfr apparently composed a poem in Harald's honour, which hasn't survived, but Harald’s Saga says the poet was a "good friend" of the king.[5] Unfortunately, we don't know anything about Þjóðólfr's own religion or any other biographical details. (According to Heimskringla, Þjóðólfr interceded with Harald on behalf of his four sons by the Finnish woman Snaefrith, after he banished them. The story is in chapter 26 of Harald's saga Hárfagra.)
Þjóðólfr also is credited with another poem, Ynglingatal, which describes the illustrious ancestry of the Norwegian petty king Ragnvald the Mountain-High, giving him a long list of Swedish and Norwegian kings as his forebears.
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